Gisele Fetterman, wife of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman, speaks to supporters after her husband’s win within the Pennsylvania Primary election at a watch party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. May 17, 2022.
Quinn Glabicki | Reuters
The wife of U.S. Sen.-elect John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said right-wing misogyny is fueling personal attacks on her by conservative news outlets and on social media.
“The suitable-wing hates women,” Gisele Barreto Fetterman told The Recent Republic magazine in a latest interview.
“They especially hate strong women, and I believe that is what you are seeing,” said Gisele, whose Democratic husband currently is Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor.
“The undeniable fact that a spouse of a senator-elect has been attacked nonstop for the past 24 hours and everybody’s OK with it and everybody thinks it’s normal … It is not normal,” she said after her first day of spousal orientation on Capitol Hill.
“Since entering the Capitol for training, my inbox has been completely full of threats and horrible things,” she told the magazine.
“And that is because I have been [on a] loop on Fox News,” Gisele said.
“Hopefully it is not like this without end … and hopefully it is not like this for the following young Latina or person of color or spouse who enters this space,” the Brazil-born Fetterman said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., one other woman of color who has been heavily criticized by Fox News, sympathized with Gisele Fetterman, telling The Recent Republic, “It’s extremely vital that the [Democratic] party sticks up for people.”
“They have not done a very good job prior to now,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Gisele Fetterman has develop into her husband’s spokesperson since he suffered a stroke in May.
That medical emergency accelerated conservative attacks on John Fetterman, whose race against the Republican nominee, TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, was amongst probably the most closely watched contests of the midterm elections.
The Senate seat at stake was becoming vacant attributable to the retirement of Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican, at a time when the GOP was attempting to regain a majority within the Senate. Oz also drew attention due to the backing he received from former President Donald Trump.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama campaigns on stage for John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, as Gisele Fetterman stands nearby, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 5, 2022.
Quinn Glabicki | Reuters
A survey by Media Matters for America, a liberal press watchdog, found that John Fetterman was mentioned on Fox News’ prime-time lineup more often than the Democratic nominees in six other competitive races combined.
Gisele Fetterman herself quickly became a goal of criticism.
Fox News host Jesse Waters in an October segment of his show called her “quite calculating” and insinuated she wished to change jobs along with her husband.
Other pundits have also pushed that conspiracy theory.
The conservative media’s concentrate on Gisele Fetterman continued after her husband’s defeat of Oz helped Democrats maintain majority control of the Senate.
Particularly, Fox News fixated on a photograph of Gisele and John Fetterman taken on their first day on the Capitol, through which the 6’9″ senator-elect is standing to the far left of the frame and his right arm is essentially cropped out.
While that image, posted by Gisele Fetterman on her Twitter account, was meant to be an inside joke about John Fetterman’s size, some accused her of attempting to steal the limelight from him.
Fox News, in an internet article concerning the photo, said social media “users mocked the photo for seemingly depicting Mrs. Fetterman as having achieved her fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Some insisted the photo was her leaning into the claim that she was the actual Senate candidate all along, thanks [to] her husband’s cognitive issues brought on by his stroke last May,” the news outlet reported.
That article quoted several tweets from conservatives, including several from other media outlets.
John Fetterman’s office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from CNBC about his wife’s interview.
The U.S. Capitol Police last 12 months investigated nearly 10,000 threats against Congress. Violent threats against lawmakers and their staff have greater than doubled since 2017.
On Oct. 28, Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was brutally assaulted by an intruder within the couple’s San Francisco home.
